Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign claimed vindication Thursday night after a sophisticated 24-hour counterattack turned a potentially lethal story in The New York Times into a conservative call to arms.

The piece about McCain’s friendly relations with a telecommunications lobbyist — long-discussed in political circles and planned for weeks by McCain operatives — was the first test of his ability to confront a public-relations crisis since becoming the GOP’s presumptive nominee.

But the reaction may have said as much about the mindset of the conservative movement on the brink of the general election as it did about McCain and his team.

“Even if they want to quibble within our own tribe, they’ll circle the wagons when we’re attacked by the Times,” said McCain campaign senior adviser Charlie Black.

Few commentators on the right — including some who regularly denounce ethical lapses or weaknesses of the flesh among Democrats — paused to assess seriously whether the Times’ suggestions of conflict of interest were well-founded.

Instead, many swallowed past misgivings about McCain to rally to his defense, on the apparent theory that anyone under assault by the most powerful institution in the mainstream media could not be all bad.

“For conservatives, The New York Times is shorthand for everything they distrust,” said John Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College and former Republican operative.

It was a vivid illustration of the power of the longstanding anti-media grievance among conservatives. In the past, McCain’s cozy relationships with establishment journalists (“My base,” as he sometimes jokes) has been a major reason the Arizona senator is viewed with such jaundiced eyes by many on the right. McCain was able to leverage these feelings to turn a potentially devastating story into something that arguably lifts his political standing.

“We feel that the story has been met with widespread condemnation,” said Jill Hazelbaker, the campaign communications director. “We faced our first crisis of the general election, we handled it and we’ll try to move past it tomorrow.”

McCain campaign officials began their daylong effort by working furiously behind the scenes to reassure donors and to coordinate an anti-Times message with Republican supporters and conservative commentators.

Since November, McCain’s campaign had feared the story and its impact. But the delay also allowed McCain’s backers to plot exactly how they would respond.

An hour after the Times posted the story at about 7:45 p.m., Hazelbaker issued a scathing response labeling it “a hit-and-run smear campaign.” Soon after, the campaign sent reporters the extensive response prepared for the Times back in December. After that, the press received excerpts from the appearance of Robert Bennett, the Washington lawyer hired by McCain to try to deal with the newspaper on the story, on Fox’s “Hannity & Colmes.”

At the same time, McCain backers were gathering up favorable reaction and analysis on the cable networks and forwarding it to conservative media voices and other opinion makers on the right.

“We wanted to be fast, forward-leaning and as open and transparent as possible,” said a McCain aide involved in the effort.

Craig Shirley, a public relations consultant working for McCain, called conservative media critic Brent Bozell — a McCain skeptic. Bozell, who heads the media watchdog group Media Research Center, then issued a statement ripping the Times while defending McCain. Shirley’s firm sent that criticism, along with comments from Pat Buchanan, out to all conservative contacts, ranging from radio hosts to producers to bloggers. As one of the first conservative leaders to come to McCain's defense, Bozell provided ideological cover to others, including morning talk show host Joe Scarborough — another McCain skeptic — to support McCain and go after the Times.

In late-night e-mails to reporters and early-morning appearances on television, McCain’s mouthpieces took the ferocious and unrelenting approach of a political campaign.

Before breakfast, Patrick Hynes, a blogger on contract with McCain, pieced together the reaction of outraged bloggers on the right and blasted an e-mail titled “What Some Folks Are Saying About Times Hit Job.”

Bennett said on NBC’s “Today” show that the article was “a nonstory” and “a hatchet job.” On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” he called it “a real smear.”

Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, went on CBS’s “The Early Show” and called it “the worst kind of tabloid journalism” and a “fabrication.”

A few hours later, Davis blasted a fundraising e-mail with the subject line "Here We Go," urging followers to "help to counteract the liberal establishment and fight back against The New York Times by making an immediate contribution today."

Not long after the network and cable morning news shows led with the story, top McCain supporters appeared on the same programs to chastise the Times and denigrate the story. Conservative publications including The American Spectator and Human Events weighed in to defend McCain. By late morning, Shirley’s firm had lined up a half-dozen conservative leaders to attack the Times and had booked guests on dozens of radio and cable television shows. In addition, Black, Bennett and Davis all made the rounds.

Also on in the morning and for the rest of the day was Todd Harris, a top aide in Fred Thompson’s campaign who had previously worked for McCain in 2000.

The Times did not immediately defend itself, letting the story speak for itself until Executive Editor Bill Keller issued a statement Thursday morning saying the account was “nailed down to our satisfaction.”

With silence from the paper, the McCain campaign was free to frame the debate.

While top surrogates lit into the paper, McCain himself and his wife, Cindy, appeared before reporters at 9 a.m. in Toledo, Ohio. Like the surrogates, the McCains sought to lessen the focus on the underlying charges and spotlight the decision of the paper to publish.

But instead of lashing out at the “largest liberal newspaper in America,” as Black had on CNN earlier in the morning, the McCains calmly and repeatedly expressed “disappointment” in the Times. As he does at most all of his press conferences, McCain answered every question, and aides made no attempt to intervene.

While this was going on, Black, Davis, Hazelbaker and other McCain aides were telephoning members of Congress, top donors and other GOP opinion-makers to ensure that they were well-armed with the response message.

“Facts on NYT story” was the subject line of a 9:43 a.m. e-mail from Hazelbaker to McCain backers.

Later in the morning, two top aides from McCain’s 2000 campaign, press aides Dan Schnur and Howard Opinsky, contacted Politico without prompting to say they weren’t the sources for the Times story and to cast doubt on the piece.

At noon, the McCain campaign got perhaps its most important break. Rush Limbaugh, who has been the senator’s worst tormentor since he effectively seized the GOP nomination, came on the air and immediately denounced the Times.

Limbaugh warned McCain, who has close relations with the press, that such a story was typical of what he calls the “drive-by media.” But he mostly shredded the paper and the story, calling it “Page Six-type gossip.”

When the network evening news broadcasts came on, all three of the pieces brimmed with McCain’s messages — and two of them carried clips of Limbaugh hammering The New York Times.

"Tactically, the McCain campaign executed flawlessly and quickly to put this story back in the box,” said GOP strategist Phil Musser, a former executive director of the Republican Governors Association. “They reshaped the coverage from dawn to dusk, avoided any big name conservative defections and were actually monetizing the event online at the Gray Lady's expense.”

“Ironically,” said Musser, who supported Mitt Romney’s presidential bid, “the larger impact of the whole story may well be to further galvanize McCain's leadership position, especially if it goes away quickly.”